ABSTRACT
The Bronze Age civilisations of China (Shang) and the Eastern Mediterranean (Minoan) developed parallel to Mesopotamia and Egypt. But while China witnessed a transitional phase during 3000–1600 BCE and clear evidence of civilisational features emerges only with the Shang period, the fully developed Minoan civilisation can be seen only from the proto-palatial phase during 1900–1750 BCE. Although both these civilisations demonstrated broad features of archaeologists’ definition of civilisation, the pattern of growth differed from either Mesopotamia or Egypt.
